But no sooner had the couple crossed the conditional border and gone through the Azerbaijani Lachin checkpoint than Sarkis Galstyan was arrested by Armenian law enforcement immediately upon his arrival in Gorus. The official charge is “espionage”.
The accusation of espionage is impressive, but who could Galstyan be spying for in the already liberated Karabakh? Apart from Armenia itself, as the latter is plotting revenge? If Galstyan had worked with intelligence services hostile to Armenia before Karabakh was liberated, why has he been arrested only now? Have some new circumstances come to light? Why then did Galstyan decide to move to Armenia? Is it some clever way of planting an agent? It does not look like it.
Another explanation makes much more sense: “democratic and peace-loving” Armenia declares anyone who has visited the territory of Azerbaijan a “spy”. All this is very reminiscent of the Stalin-era USSR, where everyone who had been a German prisoner of war or had been on occupied territories was labeled a “suspect”. Now the parallels with Nazi Germany rather fit Armenia itself, with its monument to Garegin Nzhdeh, and the territories are not occupied, but on the contrary, liberated from occupation, but Armenian law enforcement acts quite in the spirit of Stalin’s NKVD.
There is yet another explanation. With all the hysteria about mythical “ethnic cleansing”, Yerevan is not happy that at the end of March 2024 the spouses Sarkis Galstyan and Margarita Shahnazaryan arrive in Armenia from Karabakh safe and sound. This means they have to either admit that Azerbaijan committed no “ethnic cleansing” or declare the returning couple “Azerbaijani spies”.
But whatever the motives of the security forces of “democratic Armenia”, this whole story is an indelible disgrace for the International Red Cross. Galstyan was arrested on March 29, as soon as the Red Cross brought him to Armenia. Armenian law enforcement authorities announced his arrest on charges of espionage on April 3. But there has been no statement from the ICRC so far, although they are hardly unaware of what happened to the man they transported across the border as part of their humanitarian mission.
Meanwhile, there are some serious questions to be asked about the ICRC’s activities. Obviously, the couple could have motives for moving from Khankendi to Armenia; at the very least, they could have children who got more or less settled and invited their elderly parents to stay with them. Obviously, this kind of transportation is still carried out by the ICRC: since there are no diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the parties need a “humanitarian mediator”, and this role is traditionally taken on by the ICRC. Back in the days when the junta was still floundering in Khankendi, we saw how the ICRC was used to smuggle contraband and pull dangerous foreigners out of Karabakh, and, finally, how secret services of several countries, including France, worked under the cover of the ICRC during the 44-day war.
How long will this tainted organization be considered infallible?
Nurani
Translated from Minval.az
